EnduroSat, the Bulgarian satellite manufacturer and service provider, has announced the appointment of Rusty Thomas to lead its US business.
Thomas brings 35+ years of experience to EnduroSat’s small US team, including:
- Leading production for SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft
- Founding Amazon Kuiper’s government solutions team
- Most recently, serving as Sierra Space’s CTO and overseeing the tech for the company’s Dream Chaser spaceplane.
Founded in 2015, EnduroSat has raised about $65M and systematically ramped up its capabilities—from satellite components, cubesats, and microsats, to larger satellite buses and end-to-end mission management. In total, EnduroSat has sent over 60 satellites to orbit for customers.
New digs: Thomas is stepping into the US chief executive role as EnduroSat finalizes several new teams and facilities to ramp up the company’s production.
- Last year, EnduroSat opened its first US office in Denver, including a clean room to integrate US payloads into satellites manufactured in Bulgaria.
- In May, the company raised €43M ($50.4M) to complete a new 188,000 sq ft manufacturing facility in Bulgaria that will soon be able to churn out 60 ESPA-class sats per month.
- EnduroSat is also building a dedicated team in Washington, DC, to focus on winning more US government contracts.
Last year, EnduroSat US CTO Jennifer Alvarez told Payload that 60% of the company’s revenue came from the US.
Importer, exporter: While the processes are being stood up for EnduroSat to ship satellite buses to the US for integration and launch, Thomas is also in conversations with US suppliers to purchase chemical propulsion and optical comms terminals.The company is still figuring out its precise strategy on tariffs.
Thomas focused on the company’s speed as its key path to winning future business.
“The EnduroSat model has the ability to move very quickly; I think faster than a lot of the other companies that are in the United States,” Thomas said. “A lot of times we’re giving our customers six-, seven-, [or] eight-month lead time for the first satellite, as long as they can bring their payload in time and we can do the integration in less than a year.”
Go-to-market: EnduroSat’s commercial strategy in the US takes a two-pronged approach.
In the long-term, it’s focused on government contracts where EnduroSat can act as a subcontractor for larger constellation orders—the idea being that EnduroSat can meet large orders for satellite buses, no matter who wins the prime contract.
In the meantime, the focus is locking in constellation customers looking to build relatively small, low cost, and proliferated networks of dozens to hundreds of spacecraft.
